


This Noise Inside My Head

by HawthorneWhisperer



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-08
Updated: 2015-06-08
Packaged: 2018-04-03 12:14:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4100572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HawthorneWhisperer/pseuds/HawthorneWhisperer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke was the sort of woman who made people want to be brave.  She didn’t seem to have any weaknesses, actually, no matter how hard her mother pushed for her to take a job with the medical corps instead of as a pilot.  Bellamy wasn’t scared of the drift with someone like Miller, or hell, even Murphy, but Clarke?  This was going to be a goddamn disaster.  </p>
<p>Pacific Rim AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Noise Inside My Head

“No.”

“Blake, this is not up for discussion.“

“I said,  _no_ ,” Bellamy snarled and stepped toe to toe with Marshal Kane.  “And her mother will never allow it, so it’s a stupid idea.  Find me someone else.”

“Watch your mouth, Blake.  Let me worry about Commander Griffin.  Report to the Shatterdome at oh-eight hundred tomorrow.  You’re dismissed.”  Bellamy opened his mouth to protest.  “ _Dismissed_ , Ranger Blake.”

Kane stormed off in one direction while Bellamy stood still, fuming.  He had not worked this fucking hard to get through the Jaeger Academy to be assigned to the  _princess_.  Octavia being assigned to the nearly mute hulk named Lincoln had been bad enough, but this was enough to make him bail entirely.  In fact, he probably would have if he hadn’t promised his mother that he would do everything to protect Octavia and promises made on someone’s death bed are sort you kind of have to keep.

It wasn’t even that he hated Clarke.  They got along pretty well, actually, if you considered “thinly disguised hostility with a side of mutual respect” to be pretty well.  And Bellamy did, because aside from Octavia and Miller, he didn’t really get along with many people.  Clarke was a damn good pilot and a tenacious fighter.  Anyone would be lucky to have her by their side—anyone that wasn’t Bellamy.  He just couldn’t stomach the thought of her being inside his brain, seeing his weaknesses, knowing his fears.

Clarke was the sort of woman who made people want to be brave.  She didn’t seem to have  _any_ weaknesses, actually, no matter how hard her mother pushed for her to take a job with the medical corps instead of as a pilot.  Bellamy wasn’t scared of the drift with someone like Miller, or hell, even Murphy, but Clarke?  This was going to be a goddamn disaster.

 

He did wonder how Clarke got her mother to sign off.  Everyone knew that Commander Griffin had steadfastly refused to clear her daughter for combat.  She claimed Clarke’s shoulder couldn’t withstand the rigors of piloting a jaeger, even though Bellamy had sparred with Clarke half a dozen times and never noticed her favoring one shoulder over the other.  She was half a foot shorter than him and she should have been an easy opponent, but they were currently tied in the ad hoc rankings Octavia had made on the chalkboard in the corner of the training room.

No, Clarke Griffin was the last person he wanted inside his mind.  She’d be disgusted by him and rightly so.

This was going to be a goddamn disaster.

He was only half wrong.  It was a goddamn disaster for their first two attempts at the neural handshake.  The first time it was Clarke who chased the rabbit.  Bellamy was suddenly bombarded by images of a handsome blond man, smiling, hugging, and then abruptly being buried by a crush of rubble.  Clarke was standing by helplessly, screaming and crying for her father to get up.  Bellamy could dimly hear Miller up in LOCCENT barking orders in his ear—Clarke was panicking and the jaeger was coming loose from its docking bay.  Bellamy didn’t have a choice so he dove into her memory head first and pulled her back from where she was frantically throwing debris aside.

Bellamy was so thrown by Clarke’s meltdown that when they attempted the neural bridge a second time,  _he_  was the one that fell apart.  It wasn’t one singular memory that overtook him but too many all at once, rushing into him at all sides, reminding him of every failure, every broken promise, every time he’d tried to do the right thing and instead found himself standing amidst wreckage instead.  It was, in short, his worst nightmare.

Clarke seemed to take it in stride, though, and talked LOCCENT into giving them a break for the rest of the day.  While at least Bellamy hadn’t tried to break the entire docking bay like Clarke had, it was still embarrassing as hell.  He was white and shaking when they left the jaeger and of course Jasper and Monty would choose that moment to come loping down the hallway.

Bellamy didn’t totally understand what a pair of techies would see in a pilot like him, but those two seemed to hang on every word he said.  They had a weird idea that he was a badass—which, okay, he probably encouraged—but right now he felt as weak as a baby.  Suddenly Clarke leaned against him and went limp.

“Clarke!” Jasper yelled and started sprinting towards them.  Bellamy caught her just in time, worried and perplexed.

“It’s okay, Jasper,” Clarke said in that voice that managed to be soothing and commanding all at once.  “I’m just a little dizzy from the neural handshake.  Bellamy’s taking me to my room, okay?”  She glanced up and Bellamy understood.  Clarke felt fine.  She was covering for him.

“Sure thing, princess,” he said as steadily as he could manage.  Her room was just a few yards ahead—miles closer than his tiny bunk.  He should have felt ashamed but instead all he felt was gratitude as he helped her down the hall and through the heavy metal door.

Clarke straightened the moment the door clanged shut.  “Go lie down,” she ordered and gestured to her bed.

“I’m fine,” he protested, but Clarke just gave him a disbelieving look.

“No, you aren’t, and if you go back outside I guarantee Jasper and Monty are going to pounce on you and want to show you whatever the hell they’ve built out of garbage this time.  So just take a nap, okay?”

It was a little awkward to climb into someone else’s bed and take what amounted to a court ordered nap, but when Clarke issued an order people tended to comply.  Even Bellamy.

It was weird waking up in someone else’s bed and realizing that you can already identify their scent, even when you’re only half awake. That was Bellamy’s first realization.  His second was that Clarke had changed while he slept—he hadn’t even felt tired, but the second he laid down he’d fallen asleep—and she was now in a more casual shirt that was sliding down off her shoulder as she sat curled in in a metal chair, absorbed in her sketchbook.  He spent a few seconds too long looking at the curve of her neck, wondering what it would feel like under his lips.  His third realization was that, as always, Clarke had been right.  He felt better—more solid, more himself.  “Feeling better?” Clarke asked.  He expected her to sound smug, but she didn’t.  Just matter-of-fact.

“I am,” he admitted.  “What are you drawing?”  He’d seen glimpses of her artwork when they were in the drift, but everything had been moving so quickly it was hard to get a real sense of her style.

“Nothing,” she said in a strangled voice.  Clarke closed her sketchbook quickly and stood.  “Dinner in the mess hall started ten minutes ago—ready?”

It was during dinner that Bellamy realized that despite their two failures today, part of the drift had worked. He knew because the second he saw Finn he felt a stab of anger mixed with hurt that was totally out of place from his usual annoyed-indifference to Spacewalker.  He’d seen glimpses of Finn with Clarke in the drift, but the usual protocol for that was like accidentally eavesdropping—you just pretend you didn’t see it.

He was surprised that Clarke had fallen for the pretty-boy’s bullshit though.  She seemed tougher and smarter than that, and the fact that Finn had taken advantage of a weak moment on Clarke’s part pissed him off.  The fact that she was still hurt by it pissed him off even more.  In Bellamy’s opinion, Finn’s little stunt–taking his jaeger for a solo walk  _jut for fun_ – had been needlessly dangerous for Finn and everyone else on base.  Spacewalker had deserved that suspension.  Just as Bellamy was about to rebuke himself for dwelling on Clarke’s private feelings, he noticed that she was glaring daggers at Lincoln and glumly spearing her potatoes.

Looked like the drift had worked both ways.

The third time they tried initiating the neural handshake they both kept their shit together and it worked just fine.  It was a good thing too, because Abby Griffin had been up in LOCCENT making noise about pulling Clarke from pilot duty entirely if the handshake failed a third time.  She claimed it was because too many failed neural handshakes could be destabilizing for a pilot, although that seemed like bullshit considering Murphy was on his fourth attempt to find a drift-compatible partner and no one seemed concerned about his mental stability.

There was definitely tension between Clarke and her mother—more than just tension, actually—but Bellamy hadn’t been able to discern the source until their first successful drift.  Sorting through the flood of emotions and memories took some time, but they both stayed stable, even though Bellamy had a sudden urge to go murder Abby Griffin.   _She let the kaiju break through the wall to prove the jaeger program needed to continue.  Jake Griffin was inspecting the wall that day.  She might not have ordered his death or planned it, but Clarke held her responsible all the same. And now Bellamy did too, seized with the urge to march up to LOCCENT and pull Commander Griffin apart, piece by piece._   With enormous effort Bellamy pulled himself back to the present, away from Clarke’s private anguish, and she did the same, weaving her way through memories of his mother and Octavia and their nomadic and poverty-stricken childhood. 

They’d done it—they were officially drift-compatible.

The relief of finding someone drift compatible paled to the adrenaline rush that came with successfully piloting a jaeger.  Their first kill was only a category one but they celebrated like it was a category five.  The second they were both unhooked from the harness Bellamy picked her up and swung her around the cramped cockpit, her breathless laughter echoing alongside his loud whoops of joy.

Piloting with Clarke quickly became Bellamy’s favorite part of the job.  He couldn’t believe he’d ever resisted being partnered with her, because goddamn it was a lot of fun.  Clarke was still Clarke—reticent and stern at times, but warm and forgiving at other times.  It was those latter traits he appreciated the most.  He’d spent so long taking care of people, of his mother and Octavia, that he’d forgotten what it was like to have someone have his back, someone who accepted him and didn’t make him feel worse about his many, many failures.

It was going so well he should have known that it would all come crashing down.  And it did, on their fourth drop.  This time it was a category three that got dangerously close to the shoreline.  Clarke wanted to drop back because Clarke always wanted to play defense, but Bellamy pushed them to go harder, to go for the kill before they had a clean shot.

He should have listened to her protests because not only did his idiocy get sixteen men killed—civilians on a shipping vessel that got caught in the crossfire—but Clarke took a nasty hit to her half of the jaeger that jarred her shoulder.

It was hardly a life-threatening injury but it was bad enough for her to be suspended from duty until further notice and it was all his fucking fault.  He got the news after pacing outside the med bay for almost an hour and damn near broke his hand by punching the wall in response.  He barked at Monty—who started and looked like a puppy that had been kicked– for being in his way and stormed the length of the base to his bunk, slamming the door shut and kicking over the small garbage can next to his standard-issue desk.

“Rough day?”

He whirled to find Raven sitting on the edge of his bed.  “The fuck are you doing here, Reyes?” he snarled.  He barely even knew her—she was j-tech maintenance but she didn’t work on Nova Fury.  She was Spacewalker’s girlfriend—or maybe ex, he couldn’t tell from the brief glimpses in Clarke’s memory—but other than that, he knew almost nothing about her.  Raven’s face was hard, her chin clenched.

“He’s with her, you know.  Ran to med bay as soon as he heard.”

The words were like a knife to his chest.  There was only one  _he_  that Raven would be referring to, only one man aside from himself that would go racing up to med bay to be with Clarke.  He idly wondered how Raven knew what even Clarke hadn’t addressed, but a second look in her dark brown eyes revealed that she wasn’t hinting at what he hadn’t quite admitted to himself.  There was too much pain in them for there to be room for anything else.  “What do you want me to do about it?” he asked.

Raven swallowed hard and pulled her ratty old t-shirt over her head.  “Revenge,” she said simply.

Revenge he understood.  And Bellamy was so full of anger—at himself, at Finn, at Clarke—that he nodded and crushed Raven against him without another thought.  Her kisses were fierce, full of clashing teeth and desperation.

It was good, but not satisfying.  She shoved him on his back with little preamble and stripped off their clothes.  Bellamy pulled her down but Raven kept control.  She needed it and he let her take it.  She was silent, her eyes full of pain even after she shuddered to completion.  Raven dressed silently and left, leaving Bellamy alone to contemplate just how much of a monster he’d become.

Bellamy knew exactly how Clarke felt about him.  He couldn’t not know, not with the drift.  He could try to look away, so to speak, but it was there.  And he felt the same way.

He didn’t even know where it originated, which was frustrating.  It was common enough in jaeger pilot partners—if you weren’t already related and were of the same sexual orientation, feelings frequently developed.  It didn’t always lead to something, and plenty of pilots acknowledged it and then worked through it, but the thrill of having someone who understood you completely could be too enticing to ignore.  Especially for someone like Bellamy, someone lonely, someone weak.  He had convinced himself that he and Clarke would be the exception to the pull of the drift because really, someone like Clarke would never having feelings for someone like him.

At first he wrote it off as simple attraction.  Bellamy wasn’t stupid—he knew the effect he could have on women.  And while Clarke wasn’t his usual type, there was no denying how pretty she was.  But by the time they’d been piloting together for a few months he knew it was far more than that.  It was more than attraction and it was more than just the drift.  He felt tied to her in a way he’d never quite experienced before, and he knew she felt the same way.  He just couldn’t quite accept it.  Clarke was a good person—she was kind, she was strong, she was honest.  Bellamy was everything she wasn’t and he’d just proved it again.

He visited her in med bay later that day, the shame of his encounter with Raven still lingering.  Finn was nowhere to be seen, but he’d been there when she was at her worst—he was the one comforting Clarke, not Bellamy.  Because Bellamy ruined everything he touched.  Clarke seemed to notice that something was wrong but didn’t press him.  Mostly she just assured him that her shoulder would be as good as new in less than a week and they could be back in Nova Fury in less than two.  “You okay, Bell?” she said, furrowing her brow in a gesture he knew meant the gears in her head were turning, piecing things together.  “You look worse than I feel.”

Bellamy grunted and shrugged his shoulder.  Clarke pursed her lips, about to say something else, when he gently brushed some loose wisps of hair off of her forehead.  “It’s nothing, princess.  Get some rest, okay?” he said finally.  His hand briefly cupped her cheek before he let it drop and hurried out of med bay as fast as he could.  Their next drift was going to be horrible.

He was right.  He could feel the exact moment Clarke saw his memories of Raven, felt her stiffen, felt her heart sink.  She didn’t say anything, of course, because they  _never_  said anything.  You didn’t have to when you were in the drift.  Bellamy absorbed every single feeling she had, because that was the least of what he deserved.  They ran backup while Monroe and Sterling took down a category two and then Clarke unhooked herself and stalked off without a  word.

Clarke didn’t speak to him for three days.  Things were quiet in the breach which meant things were quiet on base.  Normally, Bellamy would have relished the calm but with Clarke pretending he didn’t exist he would have given anything for a kaiju fight, if only for the chance to feel her presence at the back of his mind.  He missed her, even though it was his fault and he probably didn’t have a right to feel that way.

He woke up one morning after a night of restless sleep.  It was foggy and cold outside and the cement walls of the base did little to keep out the creeping chill and damp that settled into your bones.  He kicked off the covers and pulled on a pair of sweatpants.  If he couldn’t sleep he could at least go the training room and punch something.

He heard the dull thudding of someone beating the crap out of a punching bag before he even opened the door.  Of course, because everything in his life was shit, it was Clarke, sweaty and flushed and looking like she was going to murder someone.  Probably him.  She looked his way and then turned back to the punching bag, throwing all her weight into her punches.

“You’re gonna hurt yourself like that,” he warned, because her form was all over the place and her shoulder still wasn’t 100%.  He might not have been able to protect her in the battle but he could keep her from getting more injured.  And if it helped her to hate him, then he’d take it.  He was good at that, at least.  Clarke just narrowed her eyes at him and returned to her task, her punches getting wilder and wilder.  Bellamy stepped behind her and caught her forearm in his grasp.  “Clarke, stop—you’re gonna get hurt,” he said lowly. 

She whirled around to face him, furious.  “And what should I do, Bellamy?” she bit out through a clenched jaw.  She wrenched her arm out of his grip.

“Spar with me.”  Clarke needed to beat the crap out of him and sparring was less about who was winning than understanding your opponent’s moves.  Most drift-compatible pairs sparred together but then again, most drift-compatible pilots weren’t Clarke and Bellamy.  With them it was always about winning, about proving themselves.

But just because Clarke needed to win didn’t mean he needed to let her.  He backed off for awhile, took her punches and even pretended to fall for her feint when she swiped at his legs and knocked him onto his back.  But then he started fighting back in earnest, shifting his weight to topple her off of him and pinning her to the mat with his torso against her chest.  Her hands were trapped at her sides and he smirked at her, deliberately baiting her.

Bellamy thought she would get angry.  He thought she would call on a deep reserve of rage and break herself free to continue the match.  He never thought she would kiss him, even though his lips were hovering only an inch above hers.  She kissed him like she was determined, like she had something to prove.  They both did, really.  Bellamy moved his weight to his elbows, bracketing her between his arms on the sticky mat.

They probably would have stayed in the damp, stale smelling workout room for hours if Murphy hadn’t thrown the door open.  Bellamy rolled off of Clarke as quickly as possible.  Clarke picked herself up—keeping her face hidden, her cheeks now flushed for a different reason—and headed out.  She nodded briefly to Murphy and left without a backwards glance.

Bellamy dithered for a second and then followed her out.   Clarke looked over her shoulder and jerked her head at him.  Still a little confused as to what, exactly, had just happened but not ready to say goodbye he hurried after her, ducking into her bunk and shutting her door behind him.

Clarke stood toe to toe with him—close enough to kiss him, but curiously motionless.  “Clarke, I’m—I’m sorry,” he breathed, and she gave him a tiny half smile.

“I know.  But thanks for saying it,” she said and then finally,  _finally_ , she was kissing him again and there was nothing in their way.

They were still sweaty from their sparring match and Clarke’s sports bra got stuck when she went to pull it over her shoulders, but three hard tugs from Bellamy—and one stumble by Clarke, wherein she bumped into the bed—got it loose.  Bellamy kissed down her neck, tasting the salt of her skin, living for the breathy gasp she made when he found a sensitive spot on her collarbone. 

Clarke tumbled them both onto her narrow bed and shoved his pants and boxers down in one motion.  Bellamy kicked a little to get them off and then covered her with his body.  She kissed him deeply, running her tongue along his lower lip and then slipping it inside his mouth, drawing him to her.  He slid his fingers underneath the waistband of her shorts and underwear and she made an impatient noise.

Just for that, he decided to take his time, slowly circling her entrance and teasing her clit until she growled at him, half in annoyance and half in desperation.  Only then did he give in and push two fingers inside of her, using his thumb to draw tight circles on her clit until she bit back a scream and clamped down on his fingers, shuddering.

Normally, Bellamy would have given her a minute to collect herself and come down from her haze but he was too desperate, too needy.  He held her face in his hand and pinned his forehead to hers.  “Condom?” he asked breathlessly, hoping he wasn’t going to have to get redressed and run back to his room with a raging hard on.  With his luck he would run into Jasper, Monty, Miller, or Octavia, all of whom seemed to be haunting his steps these days.  Every time he turned a corner, one of them was there.

Clarke nodded and twisted in his arms to reach towards her nightstand.  She rifled through the drawer while he tugged her shorts and underwear off and pulled out the foil packet, biting it open with her teeth and rolling the condom on.  Bellamy positioned himself over her and pushed in slowly, watching her eyes dilate.

He thought he knew everything about Clarke—being in the drift gave you that impression.  He knew her moods, her thoughts and her memories, more intimately than he knew his own.  But the moment he entered her he realized he had only scratched her surface, that Clarke was a puzzle he could spend the rest of his life solving.

They moved together, her hips rolling to meet his thrusts, breathing each other’s air, her eyes boring into his.  Clarke moved her hand up to where his rested above her head and laced her fingers through his.  She licked her lips and Bellamy broke, leaning down to kiss her, sealing them together as he lost control completely and emptied himself into her.

Bellamy collapsed on top of her, heedless of his weight.  He rested his head on her shoulder and tried to catch his breath.  Clarke brought her arms around him, clutching him to her tightly.  Their skin was slick with sweat but neither of them seemed to mind.  She kissed his forehead gently, as if she knew how much he craved that sort of affection.  She probably did know that, he realized, but he wasn’t ashamed.  Not with her.

By unspoken agreement they kept it quiet for nearly a month.  It was too new, too fragile, to risk revealing it to anyone else.   It got harder and harder to keep it just between them though, as their friends seemed to have developed an unnerving habit of simply walking into either Clarke or Bellamy’s bunk unannounced.  They tried locking their doors, but that just led to awkward moments like the time Miller stood outside Bellamy’s door yelling to be let in while Clarke hid behind some boxes of books, completely naked.  And then when Bellamy did open the door—feigning having just awoken from a nap—Miller suddenly forgot what had been so damn important and left.

The third time that happened—Octavia showed up at Clarke’s door with “important questions” about the neural handshake that any first year in the academy could have answered—Clarke declared that it was time to come clean before something drastic happened, like Monty catching them fucking in the showers (that one had been a very near miss.  Clarke was furious, Bellamy amused.)

Neither of them felt like making announcement—what would they say?   _Hey everybody, we’re banging now?—_ so they just walked into the mess hall together and sat down at their usual table, but instead of across from each other Bellamy sat to Clarke’s left.  Bellamy stole food from her tray and she elbowed him in the side, earning herself a grin and a wink from Bellamy.  They continued like that until Monty, who had been watching them intently for the past five minutes slammed his hand down on the table.  Clarke startled and Bellamy dropped his arm from where it had been resting around her shoulders.  “I. Can’t. Take. It. Anymore,” Monty bit out.  “What the hell are you two doing?”

Bellamy smirked.  “What the hell do you think we’re doing?”

“So it’s true?”  Monty demanded.

“What’s true?” Clarke responded innocently.  She took a delicate bite of her bland potatoes and smiled evilly.

“That you two are fucking,” Miller supplied drily, although he seemed to be sitting a bit straighter, as if in anticipation.

Bellamy smiled smugly and winked at Clarke.  “Something like that.”

The response was instantaneous.  Jasper and Monty groaned and Miller pumped his fist in the air.  Octavia looked annoyed.

“For how long?” Octavia asked Bellamy, who was now thoroughly confused.  They knew their friends would be surprised, but this reaction seemed a little off kilter.

“Three weeks, give or take.”

“I had this week—I win,” Miller interjected.

“Yeah, but I called  _the actual week_ , so that means  _I_ win.  Linc, back me up,” Octavia pleaded.

Lincoln shrugged and refused to look at anyone.  “You’re on your own on this one, babe,” he said and tucked back into his dinner.

“Octavia, what the  hell is going on?” Bellamy growled.  He didn’t like being in the dark, and he  _really_ didn’t like feeling like his friends were using him and Clarke as amusement.

“Just a sec, Bell.  Miller, what the hell?”

Jasper finally butted in.  “I mean, we never specified if it was when they told us or when it started, so it’s probably only fair to say you both win.”

“Real shocker that you’d side with Octavia,” Monty muttered. 

“Shut—dude, shut up,” Jasper hissed.  “But we lost and technically, they both won.”

“I know the exact day, if you’re interested,” Murphy suddenly chimed in from the next table over.

“No one cares, Murphy,”  Octavia and Miller said at the exact same time.  They glared at each other until Miller shrugged.  “Fine.  We split the pot fifty/fifty.  Do we have a deal, or are you going to sic your boyfriend on me?”

“Leave me out of this,” Lincoln muttered.

Octavia narrowed her eyes.  “Fine.  Fifty-fifty, but not a cent less.”

“Is anyone going to explain this to us?” Clarke asked.

Miller shook his head.  “Not a chance.  Just do us all a favor and no more fucking in the showers, okay?”

Clarke’s eyes widened but Bellamy chuckled.  “Deal.”

**Author's Note:**

> Bleedtoloveher is the best beta/friend a girl could have and she loves Bellamy Blake and Pacific Rim. So I wrote this for her.


End file.
